ghost stories - h. potter

0.3

【𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐄𝐄】

· 。ﾟ☆: *. ☆彡

On the morning classes began, Belle awoke to the sun shining on her face, momentarily blinding her. She was the first awake in the dorm just as she usually was, but this time there was no one around for her to yell at to wake up. Lisabeth, another girl who had shared the dorm with Emilia and Belle was dead and the other two, Clare and Monique hadn't returned for their seventh year.

Belle couldn't blame them.

She had spent most of the previous night crying at the memories that had been brought up of Emilia as soon as she had entered the dorm. She had taken a dreamless sleep potion before she dissolved under her covers, dry tear-tracks covering her cheeks as she closed her eyes. Now, she stood in the middle of the empty dorm, the only occupied bed being hers. She willed herself not to cry again, for she hated it. She hated feeling weak yet crying felt like the only thing she knew how to do.

Quickly needing to distract herself so she wouldn't become a sobbing mess, Belle fiddled with the record player that she had found on the bedside table from one of her past dormmates. As they'd had no time to collect their things before the initial battle began, there were still bits and pieces of her past roommates that were scattered around the room as a reminder that there once had been more than just Belle living in it. She knew how to use the player easily and placed the needle down on the large vinyl after she'd set it up, allowing the music to fill the room. Her mother liked to live in both the Muggle and Wizarding worlds, which had meant that she'd learned how to use both a record player and, her mother's favourite, a cassette player. The one Belle had at home was a soft pink and was small enough to be easily held with one hand. She wished she could have brought it to Hogwarts with her, but knew that the magical residue of the castle would interfere with the Muggle technology in the device. She'd just had to make do with what she had until she could return home once again.

Belle headed into the bathroom as the sounds of soft music filled her ears. She never really enjoyed the louder types of music that magic folk created, preferring the soft sounds of guitars and ukuleles that Muggles used frequently in their own songs.

Taking a quick shower to wake herself up properly, Belle changed into her uniform once she had dried herself off. With the sounds of the ukulele in the background, Belle buttoned up her white blouse and tied her blue and silver Ravenclaw tie around her neck. Pulling on her black jumper with her house crest on the front, Belle ran her hands over her hair to contain the fly-aways that had jumped up whilst pulling on her jumper. Finally pulling on her tights and skirt that fell to just above her knee, Belle padded out to the dorm, jumping when she saw Fred sitting on her bed.

"So, this is what the girl's Ravenclaw dorm looks like," he spoke, causing Belle to place a hand on her racing heart.

"Merlin, Fred, you scared me," she breathed out as she headed over to the record player, taking the needle of the disk. Fred watched as she did so curiously, before peering up at her.

"I seem to do that a lot. Are you naturally a jumpy person?" He asked and she nodded, a small smile on her face.

"People have always been able to frighten me easily. And, also, what if I had walked out naked?" Fred shrugged.

"I wouldn't have apologised," Fred replied casually causing colour to rise to Belle's cheeks as she closed the lid on the record player on her bedside table. Fred laughed loudly at her response before he shook his head cheekily.

"I'm kidding, Belle. I asked Lily to make sure the coast was clear," he told her, before he looked over at the record player and floated over to investigate the object further. It was much smaller than the ones that he had seen during his time at Hogwarts and raised an eyebrow in curiosity at the new device.